Terms of Service

Expatica provides detailed information on the terms of service for accessing any part of our sites.

Optional registration.

Expatica offers free, voluntary registration to users. By registering users will have complete access to all content and resources on the site. During registration the user is required to supply a username, password and email address, and must answer mandatory survey questions about age, gender, nationality, postal code.

Ask the Expert service

By registering with Expatica Communications BV for a Premium Profile on the Ask the Expert service, you agree to make an annual payment of a clearly communicated amount. Should your profile be confirmed and added to the system, the payment will also be confirmed, and automatically renewed annually. Should your profile not be confirmed, you will be informed of the reason and the payment will be transferred back into your account.

Upon cancelling your account before the end of the year (12 months following registration), no refund will be given for the remainder of the term but your account will automatically be stopped at the end of the term. At the end of the year (12 months following registration), should you wish to cancel your account, you will be able to do so on your personal profile page, using a log in provided by Expatica Communications BV. Cancellation will need to be done one month before the end of the term. If not requested before this time, the account will be automatically renewed.

The above-mentioned personal profile page will also be made available to you upon registration, allowing you to monitor and/or update your profile should you wish to do so. Should you have any questions about the service, please contact: experts@expatica.com.

Electronic newsletters

Expatica offers a voluntary subscription for users to receive newsletters. Subscribers will receive various email updates, which are sent on a daily and/or weekly basis highlighting new or selected stories, together with some advertisements and hyperlinks to the Expatica site. Users can remove themselves from any of our mailing lists by following the unsubscribe link provided in each email/newsletter, or by unsubscribing in the newsletter subscription area of our website.

Opt-in/opt-out policies

Opt-in/opt-out to receive our electronic newsletters when registering. With the registration, a user accepts that Expatica newsletters may include commercial messages, such as invitations to upcoming Expatica events, banners, advertorials, and advertorials.

Correcting Information

Expatica offers users the ability to correct or change the information collected during registration for any of our sites (see above). Users may change this information at any time and as often as necessary. Users who are experiencing problems or who have any questions about how our services work can contact us at expaticaservice@expatica.com.

Sharing content

Expatica’s sharing widget allows a reader to electronically forward any article to themself or to someone else by clicking the appropriate icon in the moveable sidebar of that article. The user must provide their email address or social media details, and/or that of the recipient. This information is used only in the case of transmission errors and, of course, to let the recipient know who sent the story. The information is not used for any other purpose.

Expatica Date

Expatica Date is owned and operated by a third-party service, Dating Factory (Tyche Technologies AG, Switzerland). By registering for and/or accessing Expatica Date, you also become a Dating Factory user. By using Expatica Date, you agree:

Premium listings

By registering with Expatica Communications BV for a Premium Listing, you agree to make an annual payment of a clearly communicated amount. Should your profile be confirmed and added to the system, the payment will also be confirmed, and automatically renewed annually. Should your profile not be confirmed, you will be informed of the reason and the payment will be transferred back into your account.

Upon cancelling your account before the end of the year (12 months following registration), no refund will be given for the remainder of the term but your account will automatically be stopped at the end of the term. At the end of the year (12 months following registration), should you wish to cancel your account, you will be able to do so on your personal profile page, using a log in provided by Expatica Communications BV. Cancellation will need to be done one month before the end of the term. If not requested before this time, the account will be automatically renewed.

The above-mentioned personal profile page will also be made available to you upon registration, allowing you to monitor and/or update your profile should you wish to do so. Should you have any questions about the service, please contact: expaticaservice@expatica.com.

Expatica’s community and discussion forums

Expatica.com provides message boards for user discussions on various topics. Although any user may read messages posted to the boards, only registered users are permitted to post on the boards. Contributors to our forums have the option of remaining anonymous to other users.

The Expatica community is there for you to discuss anything pertaining to your life abroad and to connect with other expats. We ask that you respect each other and follow our guidelines, as detailed below.

For new members

We expect all new posters to show respect for other posters. New members must genuinely contribute to the forum rather than only posting promotional material.

We encourage you to make the most of our social network while keeping in mind that it is a community that depends on the goodwill and responsible behaviour of its members. Do not create posts that are deliberately intended to upset other participants, start inflammatory arguments or interrupt discussions. Should you choose to display this sort of behaviour, Expatica’s moderators reserve the right to intervene, delete or close any offensive posts, or remove a member.

For existing members

Please treat new members with kindness and respect. If a new member asks a question that you or someone else has already answered, please direct them to the relevant thread. If you can’t, please ignore the question and let someone else answer it.

For all members

Expatica expects all posters to show courtesy towards each other. We encourage you to take advantage of the forum while keeping in mind that it’s a community, and the quality of the forum will only be as good as the posts that are contributed. We expect responsible behaviour and manners at all times.

Consider when posting a comment if you would say it to someone’s face? If you feel that you might say something you regret or that would cause a thread to be closed down, agree to disagree. You can’t convince everyone of your opinion.

Post intelligently. We ask that you consider the value of your posts. Your fellow posters and Expatica welcomes thought-provoking and insightful discussions, so long as all parties involved show mutual respect. If you have an opinion or controversial point to discuss, substantiate your comments.

Don’t inflame or provoke other users. Do not accuse another user of being stupid or use any other synonym. Insulting others is an unintelligent way to convey your argument. Should you choose to be abusive, you may be issued a warning to alter your post. More than two warnings will result in your profile being deleted.

Don’t be a troll. A troll is ‘someone who posts controversial and usually irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, with the intention of baiting other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion’ (Wikipedia). If this is your goal, you’re not welcome here.

Respect your moderators. Our moderators’ aim is to create a good environment for your discussions, and to ensure threads are relevant to living abroad. Expatica’s moderators have permission to enforce these guidelines and conditions, and we reserve the right to remove any posts or threads if they are irrelevant or if we feel your feedback on the forums is not presented in a respectful manner. Showing disrespect for a moderator is neither acceptable. If you have comments about a moderator or their actions, email expaticaservice@expatica.com. Posting public comments about a moderator and his/her actions will be removed.

If you chose to ignore the conditions herein, a moderator may choose to delete a portion of the post, or the entire post. You will also be issued a warning. If you are given more than two warnings, your profile will be deleted. Simply put: treat others as you would like to be treated, and you will have no problems.

Closing threads

If Expatica or the moderators feel a thread has grown out of hand or is irrelevant, we reserve the right to either split or lock the thread. A decision to do so will always be in the best interest of all users.

Expatica will allow only one username per user

If we find that you are using more than one user name, we will ask that you choose one and we will remove the other(s). If you continue to create and use more than one profile after receiving your first warning, your IP address will be banned.

Forum disclaimer

Expatica.com takes no responsibility for content that users post in these forums, nor do we endorse or represent the opinions of users. In cases where the law has been broken, Expatica will notify the proper authorities if appropriate. The IP addresses of all posts are recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. As a user you agree to any information you have entered being stored in a database. While this information will not be disclosed to any third party without your consent, the webmaster, administrator and moderators cannot be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised. The Expatica community and its related functionalities and services are free of charge. By becoming a member you accept that Expatica may send emails with announcements and special offers to you. Please note that we will never give away your email address to third parties. All email you may receive will always be sent by Expatica.(Portions of this document were inspired by Ignatzmice Studios. We thank them for their insight.)

Expatica’s posting and commenting policy

Any user who posts on Expatica’s community pages or comments on a news or feature article on Expatica.com must abide by the following policies. In the event a user does not respect our posting and commenting policy, Expatica reserves the right to edit or delete the offensive material. Expatica or its moderators may delete or edit any posts containing or linking to the following:

Racist, sexist or homophobic comments.

Making sweeping generalisations, using phrases such as ‘all _____ are so and so’.

Trolling.

Slam-posts of any kind, including anything starting with ‘you are _____’ (followed by an insult of any kind).

Entire posts in a language other than English. Phrases or words will be tolerated, as long as they serve as an accompaniment to English text.

Slandering a company’s name or services.

Repeated posts.

If you chose to ignore the conditions herein, a moderator may choose to delete a portion of the post, or the entire post.

Posting URLs and references to other sites

References to other sites will be allowed at Expatica’s discretion. If a link is deemed commercial or spam, we reserve the right to remove it. Links that genuinely aid the discussion of a topic are acceptable.Expatica.com takes no responsibility for content that users post in forums or on any article, nor do we endorse or represent the opinions of users. In cases where the law has been broken, Expatica will notify the proper authorities if appropriate or remove the post.

Liability

Expatica is not liable for any damage or expense arising out of, or sustained in connection with, using Expatica.com and/ or its services such as the Expatica community, Expatica Date, classifieds, housing search, job search, newsletters, and forums. With the acceptance of the privacy policy, the user shall indemnify Expatica and hold it, its respective members, employees, directors, officers, third party suppliers, advertisers, and agents, harmless from any liability and expense arising out of or sustained in connection with the use of Expatica.com and/ or its services.Expatica.com reserves the right to modify our policies at any time without prior notice.